Deploying Buoys to Track Ocean Currents
I'm a fact person. I like facts. I can't remember them for more than a minute or two - I have what I call "brain drain" - but I like to read about a lot of "sciency" things. So I was pleased to run across a web site that gave me an overview of The Far-Reaching Effects of Oil Spills, which provides links to news articles on the New Carissa and old Exxon Valdez. By the way, the 10th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez occurred in March, along with other important environmental events such as the 20th anniversary of Three Mile Island.
While I was reminiscing about March disasters, I ran across a major scientific problem first identified in, I think, the sixties, when Connie Francis sang her famous song, "Where the Boys Are." This brings us somehow (you figure it out) to Athena, a web site about "Earth and Space Science for K-12," which provides Ocean Drifter Data. A drifter is an ocean buoy used by scientists to collect information on ocean currents, temperature, and what kinds of birds are flying around "where the buoys are." (Now you know.)
Scientists track the locations of the drifter buoys and plot these on maps. Little science devices record ocean temperatures. Graduate students identify the bird life by examining droppings on the buoys and looking at pictures in a Field Guide to Bird Poop.
Other people interested in ocean currents are scientists who track icebergs; industries that use ocean transport and therefore want to know how to better use currents to maximize fuel and avoid icebergs; fisheries scientists who want to understand where fish are, what they eat and what affects them; fishermen who want to know where the fish are so they can catch them; and weather forecasters who want to broadcast about El Niño and the next weather disaster it will create in March.
The Athena site looks like a good resource for teachers, marine biologists, people who own beach-front property, surfers, fishermen (and women), oil companies, and future weather forecasters. At Athena you can learn how to track an oil spill by using the drifter buoys to investigate ocean currents. In the old days before ocean pollution was recognized as an environmental problem, people used to put messages in old wine bottles, cork them tightly, and throw the bottles into the ocean. If the thrower was lucky, an old fisherman in France would find the bottle and send a picture postcard to the bottle-thrower who in turn reported it to the local newspaper, which made it front-page news. These days you're not supposed to throw bottles or anything else in the ocean because it (a) pollutes and (b) endangers wildlife, which might swallow the bottle, cut a fin on broken glass, or become tipsy from leftover wine in the bottle.
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